Chocolate Facts
Henri Nestle was the first to create milk chocolate by adding condensed milk to the mixture when making chocolate bars.
Cacao trees produce pods, each of which contains 20 to 50 cacao beans.
Cacao beans are fermented, dried, roasted and ground before being used to produce chocolate.
Cocoa butter makes a sensuous massage cream.
There are different varieties of cacao beans with different flavours, much the same as there are different varieties of grapes which produce different wines.
Chocolate has less caffeine that coffee. You would have to eat more than a dozen Hershey Bars to get the amount of caffeine in one cup of coffee.
Although chocolate is not an aphrodisiac, as the ancient Aztecs believed, chocolate contains phenylethylamine (PEA), a natural substance that is reputed to stimulate the same reaction in the body as falling in love. Hence, heartbreak and loneliness are great excuses for chocolate overindulgence.
While solid chocolate is high in fat, just over half the calories in bittersweet, semisweet, and milk chocolate come from fat. Even though the cocoa butter in chocolate is mostly saturated fat, studies have shown that it doesn't appear to raise blood cholesterol.
Consumers spend more than $7 billion a year on chocolate.
US consumers eat 2.8 billion pounds of chocolate annually, representing nearly half of the world's supply.
Chocolate syrup was used for blood in the famous shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's movie, "Psycho", which actually took 7 days to shoot!
Once upon a time, money did grow on trees. Cocoa beans were used as currency by the Mayan and Aztec civilizations over 1400 years ago. When they had too much money to spend, they brewed the excess into hot chocolate drinks.
The Swiss consume more chocolate per person than any other nation on earth. That's 22 pounds each compared to 11 pounds per person in the United States.
Most women like to get chocolate instead of flowers on Valentine's Day - especially women over the age of 50.
The melting point of cocoa butter is just below human body temperature - this is why chocolate melts in your mouth.
Chocolate is poisonous for your pets.
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